---

Project 6: Lighting

Date Assigned: Thursday, November 13, 2003
Date Due: EOD Wednesday, November 19, 2003

In this assignment you will experiment with basic, character, and mood lighting.

As a group you will light your group' scene from project 3.

Individually you will light your scenes for specific moods. You may modify your scenes however you like.

Remember to allow for adequate rendering time.

Getting started

To get used to creating and manipulating lights read and perform the section of the online Maya manual entitled 7 Rendering-Lesson 3 Lighting, Shadows, and Cameras

What to do

As a group, you will light your group scene:

1. Light to illuminate all objects in their best light. Key, back, fill, bounce lights. Please pay attention to shadow quality.

 

Individually, you will light your group scene emphasizing your character.  Light this scene as follows:

1. Light the scene so your character stands out. Keep the background lighting as simple as possible. Think of this as "hero lighting." Some standard lights that you might want to use include:
   Key light.

The brightest light, the main source of illumination for the character. Chosen to make the character look good. Usually comes from the side and above.

Fill light.

Fills in the dark areas, softens shadows. Usually a non-specular light.

Rim light (a.k.a. kicker light).

Illuminates character from the non-key side. Helps to define shape and contour.

Bounce light

Light "reflecting" up from the floor or tabletop. Fills in dark areas on the undersides of the character.

2. Light the scene so as to convey a certain mood, e.g. a dimly lit romantic scene in winter, a hot sunny day, a scary place!!!…etc. In addition try to draw the viewer's attention to a certain interesting portion of your scene using only the lighting.

What we're looking for

We have different expectations for the results of each part of the assignment.

• The first part is to give you practice discussing lighting issues. Focus on achieving an interesting composition and mood as well as a sense of relationship between and among the objects. 

• The second part is an exercise in character lighting. Play with the color and placement of the lights in your scene to get a feel for the kind of effects that they can have.

• Make sure the main character looks good: not too flat, not overworked; not too shiny, not too dull; not too ruddy, not too sickly.

• Make sure the main character does not fade into the background. You might do this with a kicker light, or by making the character lighter or darker than the area immediately behind it.

• Make sure that the main character looks like it belongs in the scene, as opposed to something that has been rendered separately and pasted in. The light colors and directions used for the character should match the background. Shadows help here.

Turn in

Each group member will turn in high-quality rendered scenes, and each individual will do the same for the individual lighting portion

Projects will be critiqued on Thursday Nov 20^th. Before class, you should prepare for critique in the same manner as previous assignments. 

Copy only your final rendered images (in .jpg  format) at 800x600 resolution for each section to \\gfilesrv2.cs.washington.edu\student_data\cse458_au03\_Shared\_Project TurnIn\Project 6\

 

 

 

Basic notes:

3-point lighting:

1) Key light: The strongest, main source of light that defines the shape and surface of the subject matter, but other supplementary lights are also necessary.

2) Back light: Placed behind the object seen from the camera, brings out the object from the background, adding a separate layer for the object.

3) Fill light: Soft source of light, used to bring up the shadow area created from the key light.

4) Bounce light—Reflects up from the floor or other surfaces. Fills in dark areas on the undersides of the character.

Lighting creates the mood for the scene.

Lighting night scenes: No key light; background mostly left unlit; typically use bluish lighting on objects to add the feeling of nighttime. Shouldn't be too bright but still bright enough to make objects visible.

Lighting interior (vs. lighting objects): Take existing light (e.g. fluorescent light, sunlight from windows, etc.) and augment it; other sources of lights such as candle lights or neon signs also used depending on the scene.

Creating personality of a character by lighting: E.g. for evil characters, lighting from below is frequently used, making features of the face stand out more, such as face lines, muscles and bones.